Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Customer Service

Every month, my bank charges me a one dollar fee for having a debit card. This practice started about a year ago and fell unfortunately into the category of problems that are just small enough for me to not do anything about them. I think to myself, 'to remedy these problems would take more time than they are worth.' This is a bad practice that adds up over time - especially if you take that annual 12 dollars and add it to the annual 25 dollars I pay for a Consumer Reports account I don't use and probably a few other charges I've selectively ignored.

Then I blew up my Netflix account and lost my credit card. The former act was empowering in a destiny-changing kind of way, the latter gave me a reason to get on the phone with my bank. I figured that since I was already talking to a customer service representative I might as well air out all my grievances. Here's roughly how the fee part of the conversation went:

Me: "Oh, by the way, there's a dollar fee or maybe it's a dollar-fifty fee that appears on my bill every month and I think is because of my debit card - which by the way I don't even use."Bank: "We can get rid of that for you."Me: "I don't even know where my deb-" (contemplative pause) "You'll get rid of it?" Bank: "It's done. We've taken it off your bill."Me: "That was easy."